superswiss

I think tethering off of the cellphone's hotspot is a very unattractive idea, because phones can't use Wifi while the hotspot is turned on, so you'll constantly find yourself having to turn the hotspot on and off. The phone's hotspot is great when you are traveling and need to connect your laptop or tablet. You turn it on when you need it and then turn it off. It's not something that most people leave turned on all the time. The reality would be that you have to make sure the hotspot is turned on every time you get into the car. IMO, that's just a hassle.

The car having its own connection is just much more convenient. It's where we are heading with the Internet of Things. What's needed are more reasonable plans that allow you to have many devices w/o breaking the bank. The shared data plans is a good start, but even $10/month for a tablet-like device is still too much.

The European MMI supports rSAP not tethering. rSAP is crap. It's remote access to the SIM in your phone and is essentially equivalent to taking out your phone's SIM and stick it into the MMI, except you don't actually have to physically take out the SIM. The phone is disabled while connected to the MMI as the MMI is using the SIM. If you receive a text message, it will be received by the MMI and you never see it on the phone for example.

jakematic

Why ?
I tether all the time and still use my phone - it gets the data over the cellular connection just as it would if you weren't on WhyFi.
At least that's how iPhone does it...


Interesting, but I think still very useful and a hell of a lot cheaper than paying 2 plans.
Not that $30 or $10 a month should be an issue when you have a $110,00+ vehicle

I could use a lot less text messages anyway, my god people are so damn scared of picking up the phone and using it as a phone these days

superswiss

That's what I mean. While the hotspot is on, all the phone's data traffic goes over cellular. So, when you enter your house for example, assuming you have a Wifi network at home, the phone continues to go over cellular and eat into your data cap. If you want your iPhone to use your home's Wifi network, you have to turn off the hotspot on the phone. At least that's how it works on Android and Windows Phone. Basically as long as the hotspot is on, all the phone's data traffic has to go over cellular.

EDIT: Did some research. Looks like the iPhone puts the hotspot to sleep when nothing is connected and let's the phone use a local Wifi network. So looks like with an iPhone you wouldn't have to manually turn off the hotspot every time you want the phone to use a local Wifi network.

jakematic

I can't imagine why anyone would leave their hotspot turned on - it's a security risk for one thing.

Same with BlueTooth - I turn it on when I go to the A8 and turn it off when I leave the vehicle; takes 2 seconds.
Otherwise you just waste battery, have more EM/RFI emissions, and open yourself to snooping and hacking.

T-Mo has unlimited data so the thought of a cap never crossed my mind...

superswiss

Well, I'm not that paranoid. I leave Bluetooth on, so I never have to fumble with my phone when I get in the car. Idle battery usage of Bluetooth is marginal if you have discoverability turned off and the additional emissions are negligible compared to the cell radio emissions. Keeping discoverability turned off also helps with the snooping and hacking concern.

Have had smartphones since the Palm Treo days and never been hacked. I currently have a Windows Phone and I frankly trust its Enterprise creds when it comes to security. I don't trust iOS and Android on the other hand, so I can understand your position. Microsoft made security part of their engineering process, Apple did not. Nothing is bulletproof, but I've never had a virus, been hacked or otherwise compromised in over 20 years since I started programming as a teenager, so I must be doing something right :-).

jakematic

Even with discoverability off it's a huge battery suck just like WhyFi - which is why both of mine are normally off.
Most people don't notice it because they have so much bandwidth sucking garbage running they can't get more than 10 feet from a charger.
My iPhone 5s will easily go 3 days on a charge


That you know of
It's not so much the hacking but the snooping - easy peasy even with 'enterprise' Windows.
Am thinking about a Windows phone next because they come in reasonable sizes and I don't want to look like a moron with a clipboard sized phone to my ear...

But then again folks feel they have to have everything on 28x14x365, so...

superswiss

Ok, you get one more day out of your battery than me. I charge my phones overnight anyway, so I have a full charge the next day just in case, but I'm rarely below 60% at the end of the day. Not sure what you are getting at with the snooping. Even though my Bluetooth is on, it's not discoverable and only accepts connections from trusted devices. I'm much more exposed over the cellular data connection and the unencrypted voice calls in the US, but if I was worried about that I would need to stop using cell phones.

jakematic

Kind of like saying "my car is locked, can't be stolen" - both very easy to get around, as is WhyFi and cellular as you said.
Security is always a cat and mouse game, but that is secondary to my point.

Leaving a hotspot on continuously is akin to never turning the oven off... since it will be ready when you want it with no pesky 'fiddling' to be bothered with !

Cellphones are far more up to date, and more easily and less expensively changed out than MMI will ever be, so I think rodster111 has a good idea.

Until Audi Connect gets viable speeds (read LTE) and there is better coverage, it will still be next to useless for everyone who doesn't bask in the warm glow of over-radiated high tech enclaves...

superswiss

All good points. Security is like an onion. I do this stuff for a living, so I'm pretty confident that I know what I'm doing. Everybody has their own comfort level. I do agree with you that leaving on a mobile hotspot is not a good idea. That was kinda my original point if you remember. If you know how to configure things to make them secure, you don't have to give up much convenience, but again, it's all about having enough layers of security.

The biggest problem in the USA is really the crappy wireless networks. I have the pleasure of spending a lot of time in Europe. I was actually born there. I've driven Audis in Germany etc. and used Audi Connect over there. Even the 3G version is much faster than the USA spec MMI. More things go over the data connection, too. They get Google Traffic in their MMI, whereas we have to make due with SiriusXM traffic etc.

Living in the SF Bay Area, connectivity is certainly great here compared to many other parts, so the current setup works very well for me, but I totally understand that somebody living in a less connected part of the country will have a significantly worse experience.

jakematic

Same here, that's why I know how bad it is


Europe is the size of Texas (roughly) so naturally it's easier to cover with far fewer POPs and easily upgrade to the latest tech.

We'll get there eventually.
In the interim I very much enjoy visiting my place in NY that has no coverage, no internet, and is quiet when you row out on the lake